| City council is giving arts organizations another week to come up with the money required to keep plans for a major arts centre alive after the deadline to secure funding passed.
City council’s funding for the Calgary Centre for the Visual Arts – a major gallery and arts centre to be located in two downtown heritage buildings owned by telecommunications giant Telus – is contingent on support from other levels of government. But a deadline imposed to secure funding passed recently, and funding has only been secured by the province.
As a result, city administrators recommended that council withdraw its funding commitment. Ald. Madeleine King, however, convinced her colleagues to give proponents of the plan more time to secure federal funding before making a decision, noting that a commitment from the federal government is imminent. Council agreed on November 3 to delay its decision by a week to give time for that commitment. The centre has been in the planning stages for three years.
Jazz festival sponsor
The Calgary Jazz Festival has picked up a new major sponsor, after TD Canada Trust announced a four-year commitment to the music festival on October 30.
The announcement comes after the federal government’s new tobacco legislation threatened the annual festival’s future, because it forced longtime sponsor Du Maurier to stop its financial contribution. The bill disallows tobacco company sponsorship altogether.
TD Canada Trust’s support will be extended to similar festivals from coast to coast, as cities including Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax will have TD as their title sponsor and five other Canadian cities will receive funding for their festivals. The Canadian festival sponsorship project is said to be a multi-million dollar deal.
The 2004 Calgary Jazz Festival is scheduled to run from June 25 to July 4.
Westgate condos
Nearby residents are concerned a massive condo development on the site of the old Westgate Hotel is too big for the neighbourhood, and will put too much traffic onto gridlocked Bow Trail.
Although city council gave approval to the first step of the plan on November 3, representatives from nearby communities told council they felt the three condominium towers – the largest of which reaches 30 storeys – are too tall to fit into the residential communities.
Ward Ald. Craig Burrows also says the project may put too much traffic onto Bow Trail, which already handles more traffic than it was designed to move. He is pushing his council colleagues to fast track a planned widening of Bow Trail, creation of rapid bus service in the area and the expansion of C-Train service up Bow Trail – a plan that is so far into the future, it isn’t even on the city’s wish list yet.
A traffic consultant working for the project’s developer, however, says the development won’t generate any more traffic than if the hotel was re-opened.
Wildlife crossings
A University of Calgary researcher says the Trans-Canada highway through Banff National Park should be elevated for long stretches to allow wildlife to safely cross the busy road.
Shelly Alexander, a researcher who has studying wildlife movement in the area, says the federal government’s announcement of $50 million to twin the highway between Lake Louise and the B.C. border is good news for animals, but raising the highway for stretches up to a kilometre down would ensure the long-term health of animals in the park better than smaller overpasses currently in use.
A number of wildlife overpasses and underpasses have been built in the last decade throughout the park to help wildlife more safely cross the highway. While they are proving somewhat successful, Alexander says the highway continues to cut off animals natural movements.
The idea of elevating the highway has been around for years, but has always been dismissed as too expensive. Alexander says the twinning construction offers an opportunity to raise the highway more affordably. |
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